1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an electro-optical apparatus, a flexible printed circuit board, a manufacturing method for an electro-optical apparatus, and electronic equipment.
2. Background Art
A principal portion of an electro-optical apparatus used as a display of electronic devices such as a mobile phone includes an electro-optical panel having an image display section using liquid crystal or the like as electro-optical material and being constituted of a plurality of picture elements, a drive circuit unit including electronic components required for driving the image display section, a flexible printed circuit (hereinafter, referred to as FPC) board for connecting electro-optical panel and electronic equipment body, and a light source unit including a light source emitting a light beam and a light guide plate or the like for guiding a light beam emitted from the light source to the image display section.
An LED chip, which is one type of light source, is packaged on the FPC connected at the output terminal thereof to the electro-optical panel, arranged inside a case in which the electro-optical panel is assembled together with the FPC, and emits a light beam to a light guide plate of the light source unit assembled in the case.
Here, the electronic components which constitute the aforementioned drive circuit unit include a driver IC for supplying a driving voltage, a power source IC for supplying a voltage to the driver IC, and a control IC for controlling the driver IC and the power source IC and so on. These electronic components are mounted on the FPC.
In a mounting method for these electronic components on the FPC, the FPC is positioned and adhered to a pallet as a guide plate. Subsequently, using, for example, a metal mask, a soldering pattern formed of solder paste is screen-printed at a desired position on the FPC adhered on the pallet, where a plurality of electronic components are mounted. Subsequently, the electronic components are mounted one-by-one on the printed soldering pattern using a device such as a chip mounter. Then, the pallet is passed through a re-flow furnace as is, and is heated for soldering. Thus, the plurality of electronic components is mounted on the FPC in this manner.
A technique for mounting a plurality of electronic components on an FPC is publicly known.
An electro-optical apparatus having a plurality of electronic components mounted on the FPC is also publicly known.
However, when mounting the plurality of electronic components on the flexible FPC using the aforementioned mounting method in the related art, there is a problem in that a significantly long time is required for mounting the electronic components, and hence workability is bad.
In addition, there are other problems such as the mounting position of the electronic components on the FPC may vary depending on the model of the designed electro-optical apparatus, and hence a jig for positioning the FPC on a pallet, the pallet, and a metal mask have to be prepared, thereby increasing the mounting cost. In addition, when the mounting density of the electronic components on the FPC is increased, the process yield is correspondingly lowered.
In view of such problems, it is an object of the present invention to provide an electro-optical apparatus in which a plurality of electronic components can be mounted on an FPC at a high mounting density with high operating efficiency at a low cost, and the FPC can be assembled in a small space, a flexible printed circuit (FPC) board, a manufacturing method for a electro-optical apparatus, and electronic equipment using the electro-optical apparatus.